"I'm a working Teamster with a name," said Hawkins, the Green Party's candidate for
governor.

The line is a play on recent public polls showing an unnamed, union-backed
candidate would draw double-digit support from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the Democrat
running for his second term.

"It's a long shot," Hawkins said today, "but actually we could win this election."

Hawkins' optimism comes as the state's union-backed political faction, the Working
Families Party, formally endorsed Cuomo last weekend. Some Working Families
members are angry over the endorsement. Hawkins wants them to join his effort
to elevate his third-party candidacy onto debate stages and into news cycles to
challenge the major parties.

"I think we've not been taken seriously," Hawkins said. "I'm a working Teamster,
and I think a lot of the media thought, 'Hey, he works overnight, unloading trucks, what can he do?'"

So far, Hawkins has had almost no luck winning any official or overt recognition
from Working Families, Cuomo or the Republican candidate Rob Astorino. The WFP
declined to meet with him last week to talk about a joint assault against Cuomo. The governor and Astorino have ignored or rejected his call to let third-party candidates into this year's political debates.

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party's candidate for governor, believes he has an opportunity to draw support in this year's election from progressives and union members who are dissatisfied with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic nominee. Teri Weaver | tweaver@syracuse.com

But Hawkins, a perennial candidate in Syracuse and state elections for the past two
decades, remains confident despite gigantic odds. The Greens have a little more
than 24,000 registered voters in a state with nearly 12 million enrolled voters.

Four years ago, the United Parcel Service worker garnered more than 50,000 votes in the gubernatorial race. That's a legal threshold that won the party a four-year
spot on the ballot. It also means Hawkins and other statewide Green candidates
don't have to pass petitions and instead can begin campaigning and fundraising
alongside Astorino and Cuomo.

This time, Hawkins has a three-pronged plan. He wants into any debates with Cuomo
and Astorino, not as a throw-away candidate but one who can challenge them on
economic policy. He needs backing from public employee unions, who he says are "mad
as hell" at Cuomo's first term. And finally, he's relying on coverage from the
media, in large part because he won't be able to afford to saturate the
airwaves like Cuomo and Astorino will.

Hawkins is also counting on winning support from his union colleagues. He said today he's talking with individual union members from various groups - including teachers and state workers angered by some of Cuomo's first-term policies - to persuade them to openly endorse him.

And if he can't win that, Hawkins at least wants the big unions to consider not
endorsing Cuomo or Astorino, an abstention that could free up individual locals
to campaign on Hawkins' behalf.